The Waste Land - Poem by Thomas Stearns Eliot

Poet's Notes about The Poem

NOTES ON 'THE WASTE LAND'Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolismof the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail legend:From Ritual to Romance (Macmillan) .<1> Indeed, so deeply am I indebted,Miss Weston's book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better thanmy notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the bookitself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. Toanother work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influencedour generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially thetwo volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted withthese works will immediately recognise in the poem certain references tovegetation ceremonies.<1> Macmillan Cambridge.

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEADLine 20. Cf. Ezekiel 2:1.23. Cf. Ecclesiastes 12:5.31. V. Tristan und Isolde, i, verses 5-8.42. Id. iii, verse 24.46. I am not familiar with the exact constitution of the Tarotpackof cards, from which I have obviously departed to suit my own convenience.The Hanged Man, a member of the traditional pack, fits my purposein two ways: because he is associated in my mind with the Hanged Godof Frazer, and because I associate him with the hooded figure inthe passage of the disciples to Emmaus in Part V. The Phoenician Sailorand the Merchant appear later; also the 'crowds of people,' andDeath by Water is executed in Part IV. The Man with Three Staves(an authentic member of the Tarot pack) I associate, quite arbitrarily,with the Fisher King himself.60. Cf. Baudelaire: 'Fourmillante cite; , cite; pleine dereves, Ou le spectre en plein jour raccroche lepassant.'63. Cf. Inferno, iii. 55-7.

'si lunga tratta di gente, ch'io non avrei mai creduto che morte tanta n'avesse disfatta.'64. Cf. Inferno, iv. 25-7: 'Quivi, secondo che per ascoltare, 'non avea pianto, ma' che di sospiri, 'che l'aura eterna facevan tremare.'68. A phenomenon which I have often noticed.74. Cf. the Dirge in Webster's White Devil.76. V. Baudelaire, Preface to Fleurs du Mal.II. A GAME OF CHESS77. Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, II. ii., l. 190.92. Laquearia. V. Aeneid, I. 726: dependent lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, etnoctem flammis funaliavincunt.98. Sylvan scene. V. Milton, Paradise Lost, iv. 140.99. V. Ovid, Metamorphoses, vi, Philomela.100. Cf. Part III, l. 204.115. Cf. Part III, l. 195.118. Cf. Webster: 'Is the wind in thatdoor still? '126. Cf. Part I, l. 37, 48.138. Cf. the game of chess in Middleton's Women bewareWomen.III. THE FIRE SERMON176. V. Spenser, Prothalamion.192. Cf. The Tempest, I. ii.196. Cf. Marvell, To His Coy Mistress.197. Cf. Day, Parliament of Bees: 'When of the sudden, listening, you shallhear, 'A noise of horns and hunting, which shallbring 'Actaeon to Diana in the spring, 'Where all shall see her naked skin...'199. I do not know the origin of the ballad from which these linesare taken: it was reported to me from Sydney, Australia.202. V. Verlaine, Parsifal.210. The currants were quoted at a price 'carriage andinsurancefree to London'; and the Bill of Lading etc. were to be handedto the buyer upon payment of the sight draft.Notes 196 and 197 were transposed in this and the Hogarth Press edition,but have been corrected here.210. 'Carriage and insurance free'] 'cost,insurance and freight'-Editor.218. Tiresias, although a mere spectator and not indeed a'character,'is yet the most important personage in the poem, uniting all the rest.Just as the one-eyed merchant, seller of currants, melts intothe Phoenician Sailor, and the latter is not wholly distinctfrom Ferdinand Prince of Naples, so all the women are one woman,and the two sexes meet in Tiresias. What Tiresias sees, in fact,is the substance of the poem. The whole passage from Ovid isof great anthropological interest: '... Cum Iunone iocos et maior vestraprofecto est Quam, quae contingit maribus,' dixisse,'voluptas.' Illa negat; placuit quae sit sententia docti Quaerere Tiresiae: venus huic erat utraque nota. Nam duo magnorum viridi coeuntia silva Corpora serpentum baculi violaverat ictu Deque viro factus, mirabile, femina septem Egerat autumnos; octavo rursus eosdem Vidit et 'est vestrae si tanta potentia plagae,' Dixit 'ut auctoris sortem in contraria mutet, Nunc quoque vos feriam! ' percussis anguibus isdem Forma prior rediit genetivaque venit imago. Arbiter hic igitur sumptus de lite iocosa Dicta Iovis firmat; gravius Saturnia iusto Nec pro materia fertur doluisse suique Iudicis aeterna damnavit lumina nocte, At pater omnipotens (neque enim licet inritacuiquam Facta dei fecisse deo) pro lumine adempto Scire futura dedit poenamque levavit honore.221. This may not appear as exact as Sappho's lines, but I had inmindthe 'longshore' or 'dory' fisherman, who returns atnightfall.253. V. Goldsmith, the song in The Vicar of Wakefield.257. V. The Tempest, as above.264. The interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one ofthe finest among Wren's interiors. See The Proposed Demolitionof Nineteen City Churches (P. S. King & Son, Ltd.) .266. The Song of the (three) Thames-daughters begins here.From line 292 to 306 inclusive they speak in turn.V. Gutterdsammerung, III. i: theRhine-daughters.279. V. Froude, Elizabeth, Vol. I, ch. iv,letter of De Quadrato Philip of Spain:'In the afternoon we were in a barge, watching the games on the river.(The queen) was alone with Lord Robert and myself on the poop,when they began to talk nonsense, and went so far that Lord Robertat last said, as I was on the spot there was no reason why theyshould not be married if the queen pleased.'293. Cf. Purgatorio, v. 133: 'Ricorditi di me, che son la Pia; Siena mi fe', disfecemi Maremma.'307. V. St. Augustine's Confessions: 'to Carthagethen I came,where a cauldron of unholy loves sang all about mine ears.'308. The complete text of the Buddha's Fire Sermon (whichcorrespondsin importance to the Sermon on the Mount) from which these words are taken,will be found translated in the late Henry Clarke Warren's Buddhismin Translation (Harvard Oriental Series) . Mr. Warren was oneof the great pioneers of Buddhist studies in the Occident.309. From St. Augustine's Confessions again. Thecollocationof these two representatives of eastern and western asceticism,as the culmination of this part of the poem, is not an accident.V. WHAT THE THUNDER SAIDIn the first part of Part V three themes are employed:the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous(see Miss Weston's book) and the present decay of eastern Europe.357. This is Turdus aonalaschkae pallasii, the hermit-thrushwhich I have heard in Quebec County. Chapman says (Handbook ofBirds of Eastern North America) 'it is most at home in secludedwoodland and thickety retreats.... Its notes are not remarkablefor variety or volume, but in purity and sweetness of tone andexquisite modulation they are unequalled.' Its'water-dripping song'is justly celebrated.360. The following lines were stimulated by the account of oneof the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think oneof Shackleton's) : it was related that the party of explorers,at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusionthat there was one more member than could actually be counted.367-77. Cf. Hermann Hesse, Blick ins Chaos:'Schon ist halb Europa, schon ist zumindest der halbe Osten Europas aufdemWege zum Chaos, fährt betrunken im heiligem Wahn am Abgrund entlangund singt dazu, singt betrunken und hymnisch wie Dmitri Karamasoff sang.Ueber diese Lieder lacht der Bürger beleidigt, der Heiligeund Seher hört sie mit Tränen.'402. 'Datta, dayadhvam, damyata' (Give, sympathize,control) . The fable of the meaning of the Thunder is foundin the Brihadaranyaka-Upanishad, 5, 1. A translation is foundin Deussen's Sechzig Upanishads des Veda, p. 489.408. Cf. Webster, The White Devil, v. vi: '... they'll remarry Ere the worm pierce your winding-sheet, ere the spider Make a thin curtain for your epitaphs.'412. Cf. Inferno, xxxiii. 46: 'ed io sentiichiavar l'uscio di sotto all'orribile torre.'Also F. H. Bradley, Appearance and Reality, p. 346:'My external sensations are no less private to myself than are mythoughts or my feelings. In either case my experience falls withinmy own circle, a circle closed on the outside; and, with all itselements alike, every sphere is opaque to the others which surroundit.... In brief, regarded as an existence which appears in a soul,the whole world for each is peculiar and private to that soul.'425. V. Weston, From Ritual to Romance; chapter on the FisherKing.428. V. Purgatorio, xxvi. 148. ''Ara vos precper aquella valor 'que vos guidaal som de l'escalina, 'sovegna vos atemps de ma dolor.' Pois'ascose nel foco che gli affina.'429. V. Pervigilium Veneris. Cf. Philomelain Parts II and III.

Comments about The Waste Land by Thomas Stearns Eliot

Sublime indeed! ! ! It must be added to the'one of a kind'. Undeniably hard to analyze its whole structure but what a fine piece of building that is...And I wonder: why do people seem to ignore it? (in my country as far as I'm aware)(Report)Reply